Made this heartbreaking discovery on my newly acquired 2005 GS 430, it is a 3gs despite the year! Driven in sweden and finland so road salt has done it's work. Passenger side was much better, but also needs work. Anyone dealt with anything similar? I didn't find rust this bad elsewhere so far, though I've yet to remove the plastic wheel well liners. The plastic sideskirts were full of sand which was a tell for me I should check.. Loving the car otherwise 😕

 

I've never taken my sills apart and now you're making me anxious. The good thing is that the frame rails are towards the middle of the car, so this should be mostly cosmetic. Anyways, you know the drill - cut, weld, judicious amounts of cavity wax

 

sad to see! salting the roads is the ruin of so many good cars. it seems like we would have a better, non-corrosive option by now for ice control, but

 

Yep! The problem here I suspect is sand and gravel packing up between what you see rusted out here, and the plastic sideskirt that wraps around it. When that sand is moist and or salty, this happens. There was tons of sand on the sideskirts on my car, I don't think they've ever been taken off. Removing them is a 5 minute process now that I know how, so once I get this fixed up I will take the skirts off a few times a year and clean up good and probably won't have this issue anymore. I also took off the canvas/plastic liner in the driver's side rear wheel well, and all seems good there, some surface rust that I will take care of but nothing alarming thankfully